SOURCE: “The Short Fiction,” in Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1993, pp. 3-96.

In the following essay, Hall contends that the stories in The Lottery and Other Stories, originally published as The Lottery; or, The Adventures of James Harris, form a loosely connected larger work whose major theme is the sense in its main characters of being lost and alone.

The Man in a Blue Suit and Other Unifying Devices

In The Lottery; or, The Adventures of James Harris Shirley Jackson organized 25 of her short stories into a five-part book. Although 17 of the stories had already been published in such magazines as Mademoiselle and the New Yorker, Jackson had probably been writing with a collection in mind for several years. A note on contributors to the 1944 volume Cross-Section: A Collection of New American Writing announced she was working on a book of stories to...